Numerous agricultural crops are transplanted from seedbed to field acreage when the plants are at seedling stage, that is, when three feet in height or less. Such crops include tobacco, rice, tomatoes, onions, strawberries, and as well, both conifer and deciduous species of forest crops are similarly transplanted from nursery stock. The great range in size and diversity of kind of seedlings which are required to be handled by transplanting implements has resulted in semispecialized machinery having been developed, each type of machine being adapted to handle only a portion of the entire range of seedling transplant sizes. One transplanter implement design which heretofore has been used with larger size seedlings requiring spacing intervals of fourteen inches or more, comprises a pair of metal fingers, one fixedly mounted and another pivotally mounted to open and close with respect to the first, and which radially extend in a vertical plance from a hub driven by linkage connection to ground engaging wheels. The pivotally mounted finger moves under actuation from a cam follower engaging a fixed position cam lobe which is of a configuration to provide momentary hesitation in the travel of the pivotally mounted finger with respect to constant speed rotation of the hub which mounts the fingers. While the pivotally mounted finger appears frozen in position with respect to stationary parts of the machine, the fixedly mounted finger catches up and closes toward it, to appearances, under urging of spring loading, and during this interval a seedling may be mechanically or manually placed between the finger pairs and be retained in such position by the spring loaded clamping action of the fingers while it is conveyed by rotation of the hub to an upright position at desired elevational level in a furrow. At that position the seedling is released from the grip of the fingers by the pivotally mounted separating against spring urging from the fixedly mounted finger by cam actuation. At the same time a pair of pack wheels or equivalent means closes the furrow by piling dirt around the roots of the seedling to complete the transplanting operation. Heretofore, to avoid damaging a seedling, the fixedly mounted finger of a pair carrying a seedling has been required to lift from a furrow without the tip traveling rearwardly over the planted seedling, that is, that the path of travel of the tip define a cusp.